cardinal bishop

history of cardinals

The cardinal bishops are the successors of the bishops of the sees just outside Rome. There were seven of these sees in the 8th century, but the number was later reduced to six. Prior to 1962 each of the cardinal bishops had full jurisdiction in his own see; since then, however, they preserve only the title without any of the functions, which passed to a bishop actually resident in the see. In...

...popes. Among its duties articulated in conciliar and papal decrees of 1059 and 1179—rules still in effect in the Roman Catholic Church today—was to elect the pope. A cardinal could be a cardinal bishop (if the church he was given was outside the city of Rome, whose only bishop, of course, was the pope himself), a cardinal priest, or a cardinal deacon. Cardinals also had different...